William and Mary set for home games

After a three-game road gauntlet, William and Mary's young basketball team finally gets the benefit and comfort of suiting up at Kaplan Arena.

The Tribe plays its first home games of the season Friday, Saturday and Sunday, as part of the Legend's Classic.

"We're home, and as close to healthy as we've been all year," head coach Tony Shaver said. "Two good things."

William and Mary hosts Gardner-Webb, Mercer and Western Carolina in the three-day, round-robin portion of the tournament. The Tribe plays Gardner-Webb on Friday (6 p.m.), Mercer on Saturday (7:30 p.m.) and Western Carolina on Sunday (4:30 p.m.).

W&M (0-3) was run out of its first two games, at Virginia and Richmond, before playing No. 9 Syracuse to the wire in a 63-60 loss last Sunday at the Carrier Dome.

"We didn't respond as well as I thought we would to some situations," Shaver said. "When we faced a little bit of adversity in (the first two) games … we looked a little bit like deer in the headlights. Not sure of ourselves, not believing in ourselves. The Syracuse game brought a great change in the look in our eyes on the floor, and I thought that was the most important part of the game."

The Tribe fields a markedly younger team than the one that last season made national noise. W&M won road games at Wake Forest and Maryland and ultimately earned an NIT berth. Eight freshmen and sophomores are in the mix this year.

Injury and illness compounded the challenges involved with such a young team. Senior forward Marcus Kitts missed four weeks of preseason practice with mono. Junior guard Kendrix Brown missed practice time with ankle problems. Freshman guard Brandon Britt, from Chesapeake, broke his right wrist in preseason and won't be available for at least a couple more weeks.

Kitts, 6-foot-9 and 230 pounds, is the Tribe's only experienced post presence. He averages a team-best 14 points and 7.7 rebounds, while shooting 53 percent from the field, in just 24 minutes per game as he gets his wind back.

"He's been unbelievable," Shaver said. "We all know what mono can do to you physically. For him to play in those three games effectively really, really impressed me."

Junior forward Quinn McDowell (13 ppg, 3.7 rpg, 50 percent 3-point field goal percentage) picked up where he left off last season, though he is getting more attention from opposing defenses as the only returning double-figure scorer.

Inexperience and lack of continuity also have bitten the Tribe in one area in which it excelled last season. W&M had 106 more assists than turnovers a year ago, and only three players finished with more turnovers than assists. Thus far this season, the Tribe has more turnovers than assists.

"That was a real key to our success last year," Shaver said, "and it's been a real key to our early losses. That's something we have to clean up."

Shaver also wants to expand what's presently a seven-man rotation. He's looking to get more minutes for 6-9 sophomore Andrew Pavloff and 6-9 freshman Tim Rusthoven. This weekend is likely to provide an opportunity.

The tournament is one of several around the country sponsored by the Gazelle Group. They match mid-major programs against high-majors — W&M at Syracuse was one of the pairings — and then the mid-majors convene for a three-game, three-day event.

"We wanted to give it a shot," Shaver said, "because we thought there were two or three things that made a lot of sense for us."

One, he said, is that W&M has trouble scheduling home games. This tournament provides three. Second is that it duplicates the CAA tournament format of three games in three days.

Third, Shaver said, the timing of the event permitted parents of players from other areas of the country to travel to Williamsburg for the Thanksgiving holiday and to see their sons play three games.